If you happen upon a large 3D printed sculpture of a deer sometime in the near future, it will likely be the work of Amsterdam-based artist Paco Raphael. Paco, who is known for pushing media boundaries within the art world, has recently ventured into the world of 3D, having designed and 3D printed a series of large-scale sculptures of deer.

Born in The Hague, Paco went on to study Communications, Media, and Design and worked for many years as a graphic designer. Throughout his life, however, the designer was always drawn towards art (for art’s sake) and managed to break into the art world after an exhibition of his work in Amsterdam in 2008. Since then, he has made a name for himself with his multimedia art pieces, using collage, painting, and most recently 3D printing to bring his pieces to life.

"Yellow Bambi" 2D collage

The “Bambies” series, for which Paco used 3D design and printing as a medium, was born out of a desire to recreate the noble, innocent animal in original and even provocative ways. First, the Dutch artist made a series of 2D collages that presented brightly colored bambis in different urban settings (such as New York), which was meant to juxtapose the delicate animal with a loud, boisterous city setting.

The next step for his series was to 3D print various sized sculptures of the bambi in a variety of different colors. In order to turn his bambi art into 3D, Paco used 3D modeling software ZBrush to transform his 2D doe design into a 3D printable model. For the 3D printing itself, Paco enlisted the help of Belgian 3D printing service i.materialise, which (as we know) offers a wide range of additive manufacturing options, both in terms of technology and material.

"Pink Bambi Statue (small)"

The first 3D printed deer sculptures to be created for the art series measured 30cm in height each and were 3D printed using stereolithography. For the post-processing, Paco colored the sculptures using brightly colored paint bombs of pink, yellow, and blue. The small deer sculptures were secured to solid bases in order to properly stand up.

From there, Paco went on to create an even larger deer, 3D printing a 50cm sculpture that was specially designed to stand on its own, without the help of a base. Using the 3D printed model, the artist then created a mold to make more of the larger scale piece. According to the artist’s website, the 50cm bambi sculptures were cast in aluminum, which he then shaved, polished, coated, and colored meticulously until the bright, almost chrome-like surface texture was achieved.

Currently, there are 19 different deer sculptures, collages, and multimedia works in Paco’s Bambi collection, all of which can be viewed on his website. According to the artist, he is now trying to develop an even larger scale Bambi, measuring as much as 4 meters in height. We can’t wait for the giant bambi to be unveiled, but we can’t help but think the animal sculpture will be less convincing as an innocent animal at that enormous scale!